I agree good engineer wouldn't sign off on such a design. However one of my clients let the sales and marketing people define design requiI agree good engineer wouldn't sign off on such a design. However one of my clients let the sales and marketing people have a huge part of defining design requirements. It's ok to get input from other areas however when a companies allows people who in my opinion aren't qualified to make technical decisions make them, it can hurt the product and company. Guess this is why this client hasn't released a new design in a long time and current products are well let's say not the highest of quality. rements than the people who

Good enginners should be able to cut costs as much as is possible without infringing on quality. I don't think any good engineer would sign off on a faulty design, but it happens every day...probably not the engineer's doing, but someone else...cutting costs. just my opinion. Those poeple doing the cutting probably don't realize that they could make a higher quality product for the same costs as they are going for if they just gave the engineer time to do it.

I never thought I would see such a long discussion on handles up or down in a dishwasher amongst this august group of intelligent engineers. Our dishwasher was in the house when we bought it in 1989. It gets used 10-12 times a year when we have a large group and flatware rarely goes through the dishwasher, but when it does it is handles down so the business end gets the bulk of the spray.

However, my real question is to those who claim hand washing does or does not waste water. Where does the water go to become wasted? Here in St. Louis it comes out of the Missouri River to a water treatment plant, to my house, to a waste treatment plant and then into the Mississippi where it is used down stream by some other town or village. It was probably used by a home in Nebraska, Iowa or some other state before it got to St. Louis. Now if you want to argue about watering lawns or tell me about my water bill, you may have a case, but even lawn water eventually ends up some where. Probably not where we want it and not in a timely fashion, but it does not just disappear.

I am always curious as to where people think water goes or where the next supply comes from. Is there more or less water on the earth today than there was 50, 100 or even an ion ago? Or is it just the same amount rearranged?

I am aware that some folks always wash their dishes before putting them in the washer. My attitude has always been that if I had one that needed me to wash the dishes in advance, it would be replaced! That is why I have a dishwasher. Also, it is important to open it and let the moisture out after the cycle is done, so that the dishes get dry without wasting a lot of power on the drying.

The unintended results of not rinsing or pre-washing is that it is simple to see if the dishes in the machine are clean or not. MY poor old dad had a water inlet valve fail on his dishwasher, but because he always rinsed his dishes it was weeks before he realized that there was a problem. Using the diry dishes did cause him a few problems but nothing permanent or really serious.

Trisodium phosphate definitely impacts the environment, no matter where it is used. That's why it was removed from dishwasher detergent. It's a powerful poison, among other things. As a cleaning agent, it also stains metal and damages grout. At my house, my husband washes the dishes, since I cook and food-shop. In my childhood, everyone washed them by hand, including kids. I think it's a matter of priorities.

Never put sharp knives in or ones you want to stay sharp or keep the handles on. Even placing a larger knife (like a 8 inch chef knife) alone one its side on the top rack will ruin it in short order. In a professional kitchen doing things like this will get you severely yelled at by chef as the knifes will now be too damaged or dull for him to do worse :-) in a dishwasher the knifes flop around as the spray passes. If placed on their side as most dishwasher companies recommend this actually causes the blade edge to get microscopic waves or dents or even chips with the result being a dull blade. if you put two knives the you get steel on steel and you can kill two knives in one wash. And if it has riveted handles they loosen up or can pop off on cheaper knives. A single higher end chef knife can sell for over $5000 so take a guess how they get cleaned :-)

I agree... If I was single, I don't think I would own a dishwasher... It's not that much more work to wash the dishes, the problem is that after your meal nobody ever wants to do the dishes.

But yes, I rinse off all the plates and silverware prior to putting them in the dishwasher, otherwise the food might harden to the point where it doesn't come out quite clean... Then you run the dishwasher, with the detergent and the rinse aid adding to the burden on the water treatment plant...

So I believe that the dishwasher uses far more energy, far more water (In actual practice) and adds more chemicals to the waste water than washing dishes by hand...

Then, what happens at my house is that I will run the dishwasher at night before I head upstairs to bed, and in the morning someone throws a cereal bowl and a coffee cup in it and runs it again... I believe that happens quite a bit in my house...

Sigh... What can you do? If our dishwasher broke and I announced that we would wash dishes by hand, I would be answered with "You either get a new dishwasher or you can get a new wife"

Washing by hand only uses more water if you keep the faucet running instead of building up a pile to rinse, turning it on at low flow to rinse, and back off while you build up the next pile. Some of us here in regularly-drought-stricken California take showers that way, too. There's no way that hand-washing dishes uses more energy. Meanwhile, the detergent is extremely damaging.

Which is one of the reasons I bought a Miele... It has a dedicated cutlery tray as the top rack, and mine has never been completely full... As I place silverware in it, I place the spoons at the front, the forks in the middle and knives towards the back. They all nest together pretty efficiently, and the tray will never wear out...

This Miele G851 has just been an awesome dishwasher. It has a built in water softener, in case your water is hard.

I bought my house new in 1991, and it came with GE Profile appliances... Three years after we moved in, I discovered that the dishwasher was leaking... The pump had failed... The thing was so noisy that we had to schedule it to wash in the middle of the night, because you had to turn the TV in the family room up way loud to be able to hear over that thing...

The Miele was not cheap, but it is 100% quality... Very well designed and built... I bought new panels for it when we changed to all stainless steel appliances six years ago when we put in granite counter tops...

The Miele is 18 years old now, and it has yet to break down or malfiunction in any way... When I took out the GE I carried it out to the back yard by myself, and held it with one hand when I opened the slider... The Miele I had to get my oldest son to help me carry it in from the garage... It is extremely heavy compared to that GE... Like 4 times the mass...

The inside of the Miele is stainless steel, and it is so quiet that if I am in the family room I can barely hear it run when the TV is off...

It has double walled hoses to guard against leaks, and it will light up with an alarm if it detects that a leak has occurred... The only time I have seen an LED come on is when the Rinse Aid is low, or the salt for the softener is low, or there is an obstruction in the intake or drain. It has a screen to trap sediment on the intake, and if food or broken glass restricts the drain it will light up an LED... Couple of minutes later, it's all fixed and working again...

If it ever does break, no question about it: I will buy another Miele. Stick a fork in me, I'm done... Customer for life.

Great idea! I had not thought of that. I have used Nylon Ty Wraps to fix specific broken parts of the mesh, but this is a better idea. I assume you cut the plastic a little bigger, and then cut slots in the edges so the edges "fold upward, as you push the cross stich sheet into the compartment.

BTW you may have noticed that your dishes are not as clean as they were before. This is becasue the detergent manufacturers have eliminated phosphates from the detergent. If you want to add them back in you can buy Trisodium phosphate any number of places. When you wash dishes you add a half of a teaspoon to the detergent. Makes a huge difference. It may or may not impact the environment, depending on where the water is treated.

Industrial workplaces are governed by OSHA rules, but this isn’t to say that rules are always followed. While injuries happen on production floors for a variety of reasons, of the top 10 OSHA rules that are most often ignored in industrial settings, two directly involve machine design: lockout/tagout procedures (LO/TO) and machine guarding.

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